Evergreen Charitable Trust
has operated since 1998 as what the Internal Revenue Service calls a
Supporting Organization. Nothing changed in Evergreen's
operations, but the IRS has changed their qualifications for
Supporting Organizations. Our attorney has advised us that we
should transition to a private foundation.

While we make the
transition we are temporarily not receiving donations and we are
temporarily not making grants. We hope the transition will be
done by the end of the year.

The biggest change for us
will be a change in minimum distribution requirements. We have
had a requirement based on annual income (relatively easy to comply
with). In the future our requirement will be based on assets
(much harder to comply with). The overall result will be less
focus on endowments which last forever and more focus on current
year distributions.

As we move through the
transition we will be contacting individual endowment advisors with
options on how to move forward. While details are still being
firmed up, we believe:

Larger endowments may
stay with Evergreen but will have minimum distribution
requirements.

Larger endowments may
transfer to one of our supported organizations to continue as
endowment funds.

Smaller endowments
($1,000 and under) will likely be asked to select a qualified
tax exempt organization to receive a full, current
distribution of their endowment fund.